There's a Storm A'Brewin'

You can always tell when a severe storm is less than 36 hours away.

In a beach town, the traffic gets heavier. The rumble of discussion grows louder. Will we get the storm? Won't we need to evacuate? Do you think that they will cancel school?

People mow their grass. After all, if it rains for several days, you won't have a chance to mow for quite a while. They buy the necessities - bread, milk, diapers, vodka, lemons. (Wait. Maybe that's only at my house)

And they lay in vast quantities of bottled water. A gallon per person per day is the recommended purchase. If a family is run by a smart woman, she has purchased the water at the very beginning of the season. She has plenty of it stored safely in a dark location, and when the storm bears down on her city, she merely makes her way to the storage location, where she counts and confirms and goes about the rest of her days.

And then you have me.

A native of my beach town for 36 years, I've lived through more than a few false alarms. Hurricanes are notoriously fickle systems, changing direction and strength several times in the course of one day, never mind the week of preparation that we often have. I've become more than a bit jaded. We had one bad storm that I can remember as a child, a night that we went to work with my mom, who was a night nurse. We slept in the locker room, and when we left in the morning, the storm had passed and it was cool - to my preteen mind - to see the trees down and the branches everywhere.

We had a category 1 6 years ago. I was pregnant with Riley and I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't pretty. We lost power for six days. The only thing that saved us was the generator that we hooked up to the fridge - and the window a/c unit. We had flooding half way up our yard that took a couple of days to recede. My dad and step mom had a cat 3 and they had some pretty extensive damage - trees down, no power, that type of thing.

I'm downplaying it right now, but the rest of the city isn't. Witness the water shelf at the grocery today:

Comments

[Karen]

Oh, stay safe!

[Kai]

I agree that the weather people and news make bigger deals out of this stuff than it really is. It may hit us up here in NY too, but I haven't done any prep aside from bringing in the lawn furniture and flowerpots from the porch.

Stay safe (and dry!)!!

[J from Ireland]

This may be a stupid question but why would you need water, does the water shut off? As we have shitty but mild weather over here I have idea about big storms or sunshine for that matter!!

[Young Wife]

I just moved to New Jersey a few months ago. I'm learning to prepare for hurricanes. Hope it really isn't bad after all.

[Jenn E]

Be careful! I hope Earl goes out to sea!

[Debby Pucci]

I will say a prayer for your safety.

[A Simple Twist of Faith]

We are outta here! Well, we already had plansfor a weekend away. Be safe!

[Jessica]

I hope the vodka shelf at the ABC store didn't look like that! HEHEHEH

[Katie]

I'm in Long Island, NY and it wasn't bad here at all. I work at a beach and so the most we had was a major loss of beach. It was all the way up to the dunes and we didn't let anyone in the water. No other issues though